Saturday, September 08, 2018

My Glastonbury Festival Memories: Chapter 7, 1987

Chapter 7. 1987, My Little Book Stall.


1987 was the first year I did my little bookstall at Glasto. My hobby at the time was dealing in second-hand books so I decided to see if I could pay for the festival by selling my books. I spent all year scouring charity shops, jumble sales, car boot sales, auctions and house clearance shops looking for suitable books that festival goers might be interested in. The sort of subjects were music books & magazines, fanzines, counter-culture, Beat Generation, anything left-wing, science fiction, ecology, eastern religion, and anything else that straight people might consider dangerous and subversive. By June I had quite a collection.
That year I went with my friends Ian & Julia who I had worked with in the Night Shelter. They managed to squeeze about ten boxes of my books into their little Citroen. It took hours to get on site because of the traffic jams but finally we got in and found my family and friends in Glebeland. Our encampment was quite big by now. There must have been about twenty in our gang including kids. My sister Margaret had acquired some bunting from somewhere so every year with some sticks from the firewood and the bunting, an area would be cordoned off for all our tents. Margaret’s partner Wayne would get busy making furniture out of the biggest bits of wood, so we could all sit around the fire in comfort. The rule was that every time someone went for a walk they had to bring some firewood back. By Sunday night though the furniture had usually ended up on the fire as supplies ran out. Wayne and Margaret always had a big tent which I found quite handy for storing my books in the entrance.

It was important to start selling my books early while people still had money in their pockets so on Thursday afternoon I set out my stall by the nearest walkway which had lots of people walking by. I just laid a blanket on the ground and displayed my books neatly on it, all individually priced. It was very unofficial, but the security wasn’t going to bother with little old me when there were drug dealers all the way up Muddy Lane and people openly selling bootleg booze and baccy all over the place. I was pleased with how well I did selling my books. One year I made enough money to go straight to Ireland for a holiday afterwards, and it was a great way of meeting people and having a chat. One thing I learned was that women seemed to read more than men. They would browse for a long time looking for a good read regardless of who wrote it whereas men seemed more interested in finding books with a cult following or to complete a collection.  I could tell when someone was out of their brain on acid or something. They would stare for ages at the design on the cover of a science fiction book and go, “wow”. Sometimes a person would say, “I’ll buy this book, but I don’t want to carry it around, can you look after it for me and I’ll pick it up on my way back?” Then they would wander off and completely forget that they had bought a book. If they hadn’t returned by Sunday, I’d sell the book all over again. Another great thing about selling my books was that it kept me on the straight and narrow, for a few hours a day anyway. In previous years I would just wander around getting more and more off my face as the day wore on. With the coming of my bookstall I now had a purpose and I enjoyed it. My Bookstall became a regular thing at Glasto right up to 2003.
I had a few famous people look at my books over the years. Once in the 80’s this nice American lady was having a browse through my books and I noticed she was wearing a stage pass so I asked her what she was doing at Glastonbury and she said that she was a singer. Then she took off her shades. I recognised her immediately. It was Julie Felix. You might not have heard of her but she was very famous in Britain in the 60’s & 70’s. Julie had a big hit record with her version of Simon & Garfunkel’s El Condor Pasa. She also had her own television series. We had a nice chat and she was very friendly. Another time this bearded bloke came along and had a rummage. I thought I recognised him but when he looked at me he didn’t seem very friendly, so I didn’t say anything. He didn’t buy anything and eventually stomped off. After he had gone my brother Paul who was sat there said, “Do you know who that was?”. “No”, I replied. “It was John Martyn”, said Paul. A person who did buy a book was Margie Clarke. She was famous after appearing in the film Letter To Brezhnev and she was in Coronation Street for a long while. Margie bought a Daphne Du Maurier paperback. I heard later that Margie was the most famous person to climb over the fence to get into Glastonbury.

There is a theatre group called The Natural Theatre Group who come from Bath. I think they are the only performers who have appeared at every single Glastonbury festival. They specialise in street theatre where they get dressed up and wander through the crowds. One year they were Cone-heads and another year they were dressed like CIA agents with walkie talkie radios. I’m not sure if it was 87 but they were all dressed up as Conservatives and had placards saying BAN THE FESTIVAL, DOWN WITH GLASTONBURY. They came up to my bookstall and one of them said, “What’s all this then, a bloody jumble sale?”. We passed an amusing few minutes trading insults until they wandered off. It was all good fun. I’ll tell you more about my bookstall later if I think of anything.
One of the most memorable things about 1987 was the Mutoid Waste Company. They were a semi-anarchistic gang who might have evolved out of the Peace Convoy. They made things out of scrap metal. I have a vague memory of going to a party once at a warehouse in London which had lots of strange machines which might have been made by them. What they did at Glasto 87 was to build a Stonehenge. It wasn’t made from stone, it was made from cars. It was spectacular and was a focal point for a lot of late night raging. In the book Glastonbury Tales by Crispin Aubrey & John Shearlaw Arabella Churchill related how she was walking past there one night only to notice her VW car was on the top of Carhenge.

Musically the highlight for me of 1987 was Van Morrison on the Sunday evening. It was only the third time I had seen him perform and the first time since 1982. To say his performance was a bit special is a huge understatement. I would put it in the top five performances in all the 38 years I have been going to Glasto. I have written about this show in my previous book, so I won’t dwell on it now. Luckily for all the Van Morrison fans around the world it was recorded by the BBC and broadcast on the Johnnie Walker Show. This has become a must- have bootleg for the hardcore Van fans and most agree that it is one of his finest shows ever. Van was certainly on the top of his game back in 1987. The next time I was at Glasto I managed to get my first ever bootleg recording which was this show and I must have listened to it hundreds of times. The sun was setting over Avalon as Taj Mahal brought the festival to a close that year. I wonder if Van stayed to watch his show because they have become good friends over the years and performed and recorded together.
The Communards were on before Van and although I can’t remember much about their show I do remember their bus passing me as they left with Jimmy Somerville and the one who later became a vicar looking at all the crowds through the window. Michael Eavis said later that Jimmy Somerville waived their fee for the show and told Michael to give the money to CND which was damned decent of them. I know I saw the Gaye Bykers On Acid on the second stage because I went to see them out of curiosity due to their unusual name, but I don’t think I was very impressed because I can’t remember anything now about their performance. One thing I do recall vividly though was the late great Ben E King playing in glorious sunshine on the Friday afternoon. He had recently had a UK number 1 with Stand By Me and I had liked him ever since I bought The Drifters Greatest Hits back in the 60’s. I was watching him right down at the front with Dominic who had then reached the ripe old age of 9. Dominic wanted to see what was going on so I lifted him up onto my shoulders. During one song Ben E King looked right at us and Dominic gave him a thumbs up sign and Ben E King gave Dom a thumbs up sign in return. It was great. You can’t buy those magical Glastonbury moments.

It was to be two long years before the next festival because Michael decided they needed a year off to assess the situation and work out what to do about the drug dealers and other problems that needed to be addressed. After a good clear up, the cows reclaimed the land and were soon contentedly munching away at the lush pasture of the Vale Of Avalon and peace returned to Worthy farm for another two years.



Friday, September 07, 2018

My Glastonbury Festival Memories: Chapter 8, 1989

Chapter 8. 1989, The day the music fried.     


I had moved to Westbury by the time Glastonbury 89 happened. I went on the train that year to Castle Cary and then shared a taxi to Pilton with some other people I met at the station. I don’t think the shuttle bus service was as well organised in those days as it is now. I soon found our gang down in Glebeland. There were friends from Bradford On Avon, Trowbridge, Westbury, London, Nottingham and Peterborough. That year it was scorching hot for the whole weekend.
There had been growing problems at Glastonbury for a few years now. I think this had been caused by Thatcherism which had turned Britain into a nation of the rich and the poor. There were 4,000,000 people unemployed and a major bi-product of poverty is crime. The problems of the deprived inner-cities were transported for a few days every summer to the beautiful Somerset countryside. This was made worse by the fact that word had spread about how easy it was to gate-crash the biggest party in the country. Michael had done his best to control matters by putting up signs saying THE SALE OF DRUGS IS PROHIBITED but those signs probably ended up on campfires. It was decided that in 1989 the police would be allowed to patrol the site. A lot of people were a bit apprehensive about this, thinking the police would turn up mob-handed with riot shields and there would be a confrontation but as it turned out they were good and after a while people realised that they were a great benefit to the festival. For one thing, the drug gangs gradually disappeared. They were still there but not in people’s faces any more. The trouble was though that there weren’t enough police to deal with another growing problem which was thieving from tents. This would get worse and worse for the next ten years or more until it was finally dealt with but more of that later.


Margaret and Wayne always went to Glasto early and they transported all my books down there. I had lots of hippy type books which I thought would appeal to the festival goers. A friend called Duncan said he would bring along a couple of boxes of books to add to my stall. When I saw what he had brought along I was very dubious at first but amazingly they all sold. I realised that Glasto people were basically like everyone else and I could sell books on virtually any subject. I remember selling a book on breeding pigs and even Ronnie Barker’s Book Of Sauce. A friend called Mary asked me if I would sell some of her home-made candles and herbal remedies on my stall. That turned out to be a bit of a disaster. I didn’t manage to sell any of her herbs and in the heat her candles wilted into a bit of a mess. I had to explain that to poor Mary when I got home.
Camping in Glebeland we were quite handy for the theatre/cabaret tent and walking past there one afternoon I saw there was a comedian on who I had never heard of before. He was Scottish and called Jerry Sadowitz. He was the most offensive but also the funniest comic I had ever seen. He said things like, “Terry Waite, he’s a bastard, I leant him a fiver and I haven’t seen him since. (Terry Waite was a hostage in Lebanon at the time) The hole in the ozone layer was a big environmental issue at the time and Jerry said, “F...k the ozone layer, I’m enjoying the nice weather”. At the end of his act he said, “I have been paid £2,000 to appear here, that’s your money. I’m going to put it on a dog in the first race on Monday and guess what, it’s going to lose”.
Musically the highlight for me again was Van Morrison. It was hot, but Van kept his jacket on throughout his performance, he must have been sweating buckets. In a review in the music papers it was described as ‘The day the music fried’. During Van’s act an air-ambulance helicopter landed to the left of the stage to take someone to hospital. It kicked up a huge cloud of dust, but Van didn’t appear to notice. He just played on regardless. I remember an Irish band called Hot House Flowers playing. They were quite popular at the time and Adam Clayton of U2 turned up and played bass with them. Suzanne Vega wore a bullet proof jacket during her performance because she had received a death threat. There were quite a few African acts on at Glastonbury in those days because world music was getting quite a following. This was due to Pete Gabriel to a large extent and Pete was there with Youssou N’Dour from Senegal. Another African musician who went down a storm was Fela Kuti. I think 89 was the year I saw the Bhundu Boys as well. They were a guitar band from Zimbabwe who played infectious danceable music that the crowd loved.

There was lots of room for camping back in 1989, so much so that we even had a game of cricket on the Sunday evening. I think that would be impossible these days. I remember it vividly because I was batting, and I spun around to hit the ball and collapsed in agony on the grass. Something had gone in my back. It took ages to recover from that. Next afternoon Wayne and Margaret gave me a lift home. It used to take hours to get off the site. There was no organisation and if one car broke down in the narrow lanes it caused chaos. That brought Glastonbury in the 1980’s to a close. A new decade dawned which was to prove to be a very challenging ten years for Glastonbury and I was there to witness all of it.

Thursday, September 06, 2018

My Glastonbury Festival Memories: Chapter 9, 1990

Chapter 9. 1990, Showdown At Yeoman’s Bridge.

In 1990 I went with a friend called Sara from Westbury. It was pouring rain when we got to the station in Westbury. “Oh no, it’s going to be a muddy year”, I said to Sara. As it turned out it wasn’t too bad at all, certainly not one of the famous muddy years anyway. I had a ticket for the festival, but Sara didn’t. I don’t think she even had a train ticket either, but the train was so packed it was impossible for them to check the tickets. I don’t know where Michael hired the security on the gate from that year, but they were quite an unsavoury aggressive bunch. They were searching everyone’s bags looking for stuff that they could confiscate for themselves. It worked to our advantage though because while they were going through my rucksack Sara sneaked past on their blind side and just strolled through the gate with no problems.
I don’t think 1990 was musically very memorable, not for me anyway. Because of the problems the festival had encountered Michael Eavis had decided to promote the theatre side of the attractions and had called it ‘The Glastonbury Festival Of Contempory Performing Arts’. If he hoped that this would attract a different type of audience, then it failed. The New Age Travellers turned up in even greater numbers and had their own ‘Free’ festival in their field and people continued to climb over the fence to get in. The act that everyone was talking about that year was a circus act called Archaos. They were French and did all sorts of dangerous stunts such as juggling with live chainsaws, motorbike walls of death and high-wire acts. Apparently, they were performing acrobatics all over the roof of the Pyramid Stage and above the crowd, but I didn’t bother watching any of that.

Of the bands that appeared, I have heard that The Happy Mondays caused a lot of problems backstage by smuggling people in their bus, forging backstage passes, laminating them and giving them to any Tom, Dick or Harry who wanted one. That band were blamed by some for attracting an unsavory element to Glasto which got worse in subsequent years, but I think it might be a bit harsh to blame them. The Cure were the top headlining band, but I didn’t like them much. Ry Cooder was someone who I admired, and I had a couple of his albums, but I think I might have been asleep when he was on. 1990 for me was the year of discovering the joys of the Acoustic Stage. It was the first of many times I saw John Otway at Glastonbury although I had witnessed his madness many times previously. Davy Spillane was there as well. He is a uilleann pipe player from Ireland. It was a good year for pipe players because I also enjoyed Katherine Tickell from Northumberland. Roy Harper of ‘punch-up with Ginger Baker’ fame played the Acoustic Stage that year and it was absolutely packed for him. We listened from outside. On the World Music stage, I saw Ladysmith Black Mambazo who sang really well and did enormous leaps into the air.

1990 was the year I made enough money on my bookstall to go straight to Ireland afterwards. On Monday afternoon I got back to Westbury, had a shower and a change of clothes and headed straight back to the station and caught the train to Fishguard and the ferry to Rosslare. I was pleased to find that the train and boat were wedged with Irish music fans on their way home from Glastonbury. The craic was mighty as they say. As the boat sailed towards Ireland all seemed well in the world but unknown to me back on Worthy Farm a riot had broken out between the unpleasant security guards and the New Age Travellers. This became known as the Battle Of Yeoman’s Bridge. The police had to deal with it and there were dozens of arrests and lots of damage. Was this the end of the road for Glastonbury? There was to be no festival in 1991.



Wednesday, September 05, 2018

My Glastonbury Festival Memories: Chapter 10, 1992

Chapter 10. 1992, Satellite Of Love.


Plans for a festival in 91 were cancelled. Michael Eavis had a lot to put up with. The local Conservative MP Mr Heathcoat-Amory did his best to get the festival closed down. Also, there was this woman called Mrs Anne Goode who had moved to Pilton. She was a Christian and claimed there were satanic rituals going on and other nonsense. She even had a 30-foot-high cross erected on her land over-looking the festival. I have heard, although I don’t know if it is true that these days her daughter rents out their land for luxury camping. How times have changed.  By the time Glastonbury returned in 92 it was getting extremely difficult to get tickets. They had sold like hot cakes. I have already written about our visit to Worthy Farm to collect our tickets from Jean Eavis in my book Vanatic so I won’t recount the whole story again, except to say that the meeting with Jean was to be prove fateful for us six years later. By 1992 Kim and I were living together in our flat in Maristow Street so there was no way I could find an excuse to go on my own as I had selfishly done in previous years. Also, me going with Sara two years earlier had taken a lot of explaining away. The other advantage for me of going with Kim was that her little Fiat Panda had just enough room to squeeze my books in for my bookstall.

Car parking was now well established outside the perimeter. As soon as we arrived in the car park we were hassled by Hare Krishna’s who wanted contributions for their free food tent. The gates were much better organised by now with proper turnstiles and much friendlier people to greet you on arrival. There was still a lot of wheeling and dealing going on outside though with dodgy geezers selling tickets or getting people in, under, over or through the fence by various means. Once inside we soon spotted Margaret’s bunting surrounding our camping area. The happy Glebeland years were over for us now because that area was no longer a campsite. In 92 we were just the other side of the hedge from where The Glade dance area is now, although The Glade didn’t exist till 2000. We were in a nice spot just off the main drag which was handy for my books and the weather was great in 92. The Hare Krishna tent was just down from us and the queue for their free grub got longer every day as people’s money ran out. We never ate their food though. Me and Kim used to like going to the Wise Crone Café in the Field of Avalon which used to have music on in there as well as nice food. Kim really liked the Tiny Tea Tent as well which is still going to this very day.  Across the walkway from us were some Australian girls who were selling hats which they had made themselves. Some of the hats were really tall and others were like jester’s hats. They did a roaring trade and those types of hat became very popular for the next few years. You needed a hat that year because it was so hot. I bought one to keep the sun off my head, not from the Aussies but from another stall. It was a nice hippy type hat. The sort of thing a Mongolian goatherd or someone like that might wear. I only had it about two days though. Passing a water tap I thought I’d stick my head under the water to cool off and I put my hat down for just a minute. When I turned around my hat had disappeared. The scallies (thieves) were starting to be everywhere.
I had my books all displayed nicely and priced up. Kim was amazed at how well they sold. Then my friend Dave decided to get in on the act. He had brought along two bin-bags of books of much inferior quality to mine. Things like Haynes Car Manuals which he proceeded to tip out all over my stall and started shouting, “Any book, 50 pence!”. I had to nip that in the bud pronto and made him flog his wares a few yards away. We had a lot of fun on the bookstall though and on the Sunday evening gave the last few away to passers-by to save the hassle of lugging them home again.
There was no traveller's field in 92. After the battle of 1990 Michael Eavis stood his ground and refused to let them in. It was a shame in a way because a lot of them were just peaceful hippies but unfortunately an unruly element had attached themselves to the New Age Travellers. Another much more sinister lot had started arriving at Glastonbury and that was the scally who had come to rob from tents. Some of the bands who were on such as Carter USM and The Levellers said it was a shame that the travellers were no longer welcome. Anyway, to the music I saw in 92. One act that really stands out in my memory was the late, great Lou Reed. Me, Dave, Nelly, Fred & Kim went for a huge walk all over the site and when we reached the Pyramid Stage Lou was on. He performed a great set including Sweet Jane, Walk On The Wild Side, Rock & Roll and finally Vicious. We knew he would be back for an encore and me and Dave had a little wager on what song he would sing. I won with Satellite Of Love and Dave actually paid up!

By Sunday afternoon there is always a chilled-out atmosphere at Glasto which is just perfect for Van Morrison. Kim and I got right to the front for Van. It was so hot that the security on the other side of the barrier were spraying the crowd with water to cool them down and handing out cups of water. A lot of these got thrown up in the air which was quite amusing. Tom Jones was on after Van, but we didn’t bother watching Tom. Glastonbury didn’t used to be all that popular with youngsters who thought it was a boring old hippy fest. In 1992 though they introduced the NME Stage which had acts like Primal Scream, The Orb, Spiritualised, Blur and The Shamen. Gradually Glastonbury became cool to go to, especially later when the Dance Tent was introduced. The only act I can remember seeing on the NME stage in 92 was Jah Wobble’s Invaders Of The Heart featuring Sinead O’Connor who were great. The day after we got home me and Kim went down to the coast to chill out for a couple of days and camped at Durdle Door. When we walked over the hill we discovered Lulworth Cove was packed with Glastonbury people who all had the same idea. We even met someone who we knew from Glasto. He was making little pottery Buddhas, so we bought one off him that I still have to this very day.


Tuesday, September 04, 2018

My Glastonbury Festival Memories: Chapter 11, 1993

Chapter 11. 1993. All Tomorrow’s Party’s.


If anyone tells you that it is always rainy and muddy at Glastonbury don’t believe them because after 1990 it didn’t rain again until 1997. In 1993 we were all back again in the same area of the site and it was another scorching hot year. Near us in 93 there was a burger van, it was designed to look like a great big burger. A man served burgers from it for about six days. By Sunday night he looked completely frazzled. I think anybody would after spending nearly a week inside a burger!
Lou Reed was back again for the second year running but this time as part of a reformed Velvet Underground. We were really looking forward to seeing one of the most influential bands of all time. Sadly though, they didn’t live up to expectations. To me they sounded tinny and dated. Thousands of people had gone along to see them after reading about how important they were, but after a few songs people started leaving to go to other stages. It must have been very disappointing for the band seeing the audience start to leave. The other thing for me was that there was no Nico because she was a major part of what made them great but unfortunately Nico had died five years earlier. At Glasto John Cale did all of Nico’s vocals but it wasn’t the same. The setlist included Sweet Jane, All Tomorrow's Parties, Venus in Furs, Beginning to See the Light, Heroin, White Light/White Heat, Rock & Roll, I'm Waiting for the Man and several others that I can’t remember now. The Velvets broke up again shortly after that tour of 93 and Sterling Morrison died in 95.

I went to the Theatre Tent with Dominic to see Attilla The Stockbroker with John Otway. I had Otway’s autobiography on my bookstall and I thought if I got Otway to sign it I would get more money for it, but I didn’t get the opportunity. They were hilarious though. The highlight for me was Otway singing ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’ and Attilla translating it into German. At the end Attilla said that he had heard that Otway had voted Conservative in the election, so he gave him several headbutts by bashing his head into the microphone. Another act that I really enjoyed was Christy Moore who was on the Pyramid Stage before Lenny Kravitz and The Kinks. Christy’s first song was ‘Welcome To The Cabaret’ and Christy said in his self-deprecating manner. “Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen for coming along to hear The Kinks and Lenny Kravitz and Christy Moore, I’ve never heard of him before!”.
The stone circle had been put in place in Kings Meadow in 92 which became a very popular area for watching the sunrise from. We used to spend a lot of time up at that end of the site which was much more peaceful than down in the Babylon of the main arena. There was a nice wine place in the Field of Avalon. I think it was called Avalon Organic Wine which was cheaper than from the other wine outlets which charged £8 for a plastic half size bottle. The other place we really liked was the Acoustic Stage which was nice and shady from the hot sun. I enjoyed lots of bands in there but often I didn’t have a clue who they were. Sharon Shannon was playing in there though on her accordion. I was so impressed I bought one of her albums called Blackbird.
There was a band on in 93 who we knew from Wiltshire called Citizen Fish. The singer was Dick who was also in the Sub-Humans. I think they played on the Avalon Stage. I never saw them, but we met Dick wandering around in the crowd one evening and had a bit of a chat. There were lots of great acts that year such as Robert Plant, The Verve, The Orb, Midnight Oil, Stereo MC’S, Teenage Fanclub and many more but my memory of it all is very hazy. Van Morrison did his usual Sunday afternoon slot and one thing I particularly remember about that was Kate St John doing the G-L-O-R-I-A elocution lessons during Gloria. I think Van finished his usual brilliant set with All In The Game, In The Garden and Daring Night. I always used the feeling that musically the festival was over for me after seeing Van. Nothing could top Van The Man.

People had continued to pour over the fence in 93. If the official figure was 100,000 people, you can be sure the actual attendance was at least 150.000. It was hard for people to find room to put a tent up. It was so crowded, tents were being put up right near the smelly toilets. In order to get a licence for 94 Michael promised to build a double fence. This was to prove both dramatic and painful for me personally. We were back again in 94 and that year had another of my most memorable performances ever.



Monday, September 03, 2018

My Glastonbury Festival Memories: Chapter 12, 1994

Chapter 12. 1994, Sunday Morning, Coming Down.


I’m proud to say that 1994 was the only time I ever climbed over the fence to get into the festival. Every other year I bought a ticket or worked there. We had failed to get tickets, so Kim agreed that I could go with Dave and Paul. It was already evening time when they arrived at ours. Before we set off we watched Ireland play Mexico in the World Cup. Mexico won 2-1 but John Aldridge scored a vital goal which got Ireland through to the next round. Anyway, that is by the by. It was already dark by the time we got to Pilton. Dave just drove straight past the car-park attendants so that was the first problem solved. Then we sneaked along the perimeter, undercover of the night until we found a nice quiet spot to begin the assault of the fence. We gave each other a leg up to the top of the fence and then sat on the top and grabbed the last person who took a run at the fence. Then a quick dash across no man’s land to the new inner fence. This was a bit lower but quite awkward as it was wire and harder to clamber up. In my panic to get over it before being spotted by the security I managed to stab myself in the palm of the hand on a loose bit of wire. We dashed for the safety of the crowds inside, tripping over tent pegs and guy ropes as we ran. Once we knew that we were safely inside we stopped, and I looked at my hand. It was bleeding profusely with a triangle of loose skin flapping about on my hand. I knew I had to get it bandaged so I went to one of the Medical Centres.
“You climbed over the fence, didn’t you”, said the nurse.
“How do you know that?”, I replied.
“Because that is the eighth injured hand I have seen today”, she answered, with a knowing smile.

Before I get to the good stuff, apart from stabbing myself, there was one other bad incident that I remember that year and that was the shooting incident in the market area. Apparently, it was caused by an argument between two drug dealers. One of them pulled out a gun and started spraying bullets around ( It might have only been an air pistol) and several innocent bystanders got hit in the crossfire. I think about five people ended up in hospital but luckily nobody got killed or seriously injured. I want to make it quite clear that this was an isolated incident that had never happened before or in the years since. Glastonbury Festival is one of the most peaceful places in Britain. There has always been a great feeling of tolerance and good behaviour at Glasto. There is quite a lot of drunkenness to be seen but it is all good natured and I have never personally witnessed any violence. Anyway, me and my niece Lee went to have a look at the scene of the shooting and the police had roped off the area where the gun play had occurred and inside the ropes there were two blokes pretending to have a boxing match which was quite funny.
There was no Pyramid Stage in 94 because it had mysteriously burnt down just a couple of weeks before the festival. Luckily, they managed to find another stage in time for the festival, but it didn’t seem the same without the pyramid which didn’t reappear for another six years. In 94 as well they tried to go all eco-friendly and had a huge wind-turbine by the stage to generate the power. I don’t think it was a big success though because it wasn’t seen again in subsequent years.

Musically my outstanding memory of 94 was the performance by the man in black, namely Johnny Cash. He appeared on the Sunday afternoon and was accompanied to the site by the Bishop of Bath & Wells, the reverend Jim Thompson who had shown Johnny all the sacred places such as Wells Cathedral and Glastonbury Abbey. I spotted Jim standing at the side of the stage with DJ Andy Kershaw. Johnny Cash was absolutely blown away by the warm reception he got from the huge crowd. It must have been the largest audience that he had ever played to in his long career. This was the first year that Glastonbury was televised so I have enjoyed watching Johnny Cash’s performance many times since. I think my favourite song was Sunday Morning Coming Down. Also, The Beast In Me which was written by another Glastonbury legend called Nick Lowe. I enjoyed every song of his brilliant set. The audience loved it as well, especially when he shouted out, “My name is Sue”, and 100,000 people replied, “How do you do”. Also during a song called Let The Train Blow The Whistle the crowd joined in by spontaneously making train noises at the end of every verse. He was also joined by his wife June Carter for a couple of songs. It was sad when they both died less than ten years later. Bishop Jim sadly died the same week as Johnny Cash in 2003. For me personally that performance is in my top five Glastonbury appearances of all time.

Other acts who I remember from that year included Peter Gabriel who brought the festival to a close on the Sunday and Irish singer Mary Black and her band. She couldn’t believe the reception she got either. I think it must have been the greatest gig of her career. I also really liked Bjork who was on the NME stage on the Saturday. I wish I had seen Iris Dement on the Acoustic Stage though. I had never heard of her in those days but I’m a huge fan now.
When we got back to Westbury we went straight in the pub and after one pint discovered we were broke after blowing all our money at Glasto. Dave just had 20 pence on him. “Give me that 20p Dave and I’ll get us £10”. I walked over the Quiz machine and put in the 20 pence and a minute later we had £10 for more pints. Dave couldn’t believe it. Anyway, that was the end of Glastonbury 1994. The following year was to be even more eventful!

Sunday, September 02, 2018

My Glastonbury Festival Memories: Chapter 13, 1995

Chapter 13. 1995, Never Mind The Bollocks.


I will always remember 1995 as the year that I put the bollocks into Glastonbury. I never claimed responsibility originally, but other people have insisted that it was me that started it. Here is how it came about. It was another scorching hot year and this year we were all camped opposite the main stage just in from Muddy Lane, (It wasn’t always muddy, that’s just the name that lane became known as over the years) It was Friday night about 3.00 in the morning and I was sitting on my little chair by the campfire. I remember it vividly because we had all been having a sing-song of Beach Boys songs. Anyway, somebody was walking home up Muddy Lane and they spotted us through a gap in the hedge.
“Alright”, shouted this bloke, “Having a good one?”. I immediately thought of a witty reply.
“Bollocks”, I shouted back.
“Oh, well bollocks to you”
“No, you bollocks”
Then somebody else nearby joined in.
“Hey, you lot”
“What?”
“Bollocks!”
“Bollocks to you as well mate”
Then it spread.
“Oi, I’m trying to get to sleep”
“You can bollocks as well then”
“Don’t you bollocks me!”
“Oh bollocks”
More and more people joined in and before long everyone was shouting bollocks at each other. I went to bed just before dawn but when I woke up later that morning all you could hear in the whole field was people shouting bollocks at each other and anyone else who had the misfortune to walk by. Chanting started as well with people shouting out the names of the politicians and celebs of the day.
“John Major”, “Bollocks”
“Bill Clinton”, “Bollocks”
“O.J.Simpson”, “Bollocks”
It gradually spread from our field to all the others till the whole festival site was shouting “Bollocks!” at each other. In front of the main stage it was all going on. Finally on Saturday night Robert Plant & Jimmy Page came on stage and apparently Robert Plant shouted, “Hello Glastonbury”, and 100,000 people shouted back, ”BOLLOCKS !!” I don’t know if that’s true though because I was somewhere else when they were on.
Another thing I remember about that day was that when I emerged from my tent was that my little fold-up chair had disappeared.
“Bollocks”, I said to Kim. “Some thieving scally has nicked my chair”
Later that day we were in a beer tent and I noticed a chair in there. “That’s my chair”, I thought to myself, so when were leaving I picked it up and took it back to our campsite.
“Somebody stole my chair”, I said to my sister Margaret, “but I saw it in the Beer Tent and nicked it back again”.
“That’s not yours”, said Margaret. “I saw you had left yours outside, so I stored it safely in our tent”. So now I had two chairs. They were breeding!

I did well on my bookstall in 95 but I made one bad mistake. One day I sat on my stall for about six hours in the blazing sun and all I had on was a pair of shorts and no sun block. Next morning when I woke up my legs were burned red raw and had swollen up. I could hardly walk. I had to go to the medical centre and the nurse put on loads of calamine lotion. It was painful I can tell you. Another thing about Glasto 1995 was that the gate-crashing had reached epidemic proportions. Glastonbury in the 90’s was crazy and 95 was possibly the craziest year of all. The official attendance figure was 80,000 but anyone who was there knows that it was at least twice that. Up in Kings Meadow at the top of the site a whole section of the fence was dismantled from inside and thousands of people just poured in through the gap.

Musically it was just as crazy. For some strange reason they decided to put Portishead on in the Acoustic Stage. They were huge at the time, one of the most popular bands in Britain. Their album Dummy had won the Mercury Prize and about 15,000 people tried to get into the Acoustic tent. How a disaster didn’t occur I don’t know. I can’t remember a lot about the music that year. I watched a bit of Jeff Buckley, but I left because I thought he was boring. I regretted that later when I discovered his album Grace and thought it was fabulous and I never got the chance to make amends because Jeff died less than two years after his Glastonbury appearance. Another band that I missed which I wish I had seen was Pulp who had replaced the Stone Roses at short notice. My niece Katherine came back to the campfire raving about how great they had been. I expect I was watching some folk band in the acoustic at the time. I enjoyed the Saw Doctors who are a great fun band to see live and I had some of their albums. I remember me and Kim watching Gilbert O’Sullivan in the acoustic. That shows what an old git I had become even in those days. 1995 was the year that they introduced the Dance Tent with the likes of Massive Attack and Carl Cox which was a huge success although I never went to it. I think that might have been one of the reasons for all the gate-crashers because this was the era of the illegal raves and acid-house parties which were sweeping the country and Glasto was the biggest rave of all.

Michael Eavis had stomach cancer in 1995 so there was no festival in 96 while he recovered. I think the festival needed to take a break anyway in order to take stock of the situation. Kim and I had to move to a new house a few days after Glasto 95 and I was still in pain from the sunburn but never mind, it had been worth it and 97 turned out to be another unforgettable year.



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